Tagged: purpose
Life is like playing Bingo
A card is needed to play Bingo. We could say “I have chosen my card,” but we could say: “This card was given to me.” It doesn’t matter. Reality is, we have a card. Because we create the “purpose” of “winning” we create our heaven and hell at the same time. In Bingo as in Life there is nothing to reason about… But reasoning is not “bad” for we need it to be “successful” in the “office world.” A little tiny game inside the “big” game, but yet the “office world” is the most important game for conditioned minds.
That is the first lesson to learn from Life.
Once we hear the calling of “numbers” (a number and a letter) we will start playing in Life. We may think that we are smart, that we have developed a “winning strategy”; but reality is that our job is to hear and to see if we got the number in our card. That is all.
Life calls, we listen… if we are AWARE. If we are not, we miss the call.
That is the second lesson in Life.
Conditioning give us purpose. Our purpose is to win, right? To say “BINGO” out loud, so everyone can see how “successful,” we are. If Life calls for a number and we don’t have it, that means that someone else may have it. We may learn the art of waiting, to seize the opportunity, and to surrender to uncertainty if “success” is our “objective.” Stress, anxiety occurs due to self-created objectives/goals/purpose. When the “monkey mind” is, there is no enjoyment.
That is the third lesson in Life.
“Wait a minute, there. You are saying that I only have to listen to the numbers being called and match them in my card, but nothing else depends on me, correct? Nothing to DO?”
Yes, indeed. Do you like that game?
“Not really, there is not much to DO in it!”
That is what you say now because you are “reasoning”, but when you are playing Bingo, when you are in it, you truly enjoy the game: The expectation that you could be the next winner feeds you with anxiety, expectation and the setbacks of Life when your number is not called; feed you with hope and uncertainty. Are you AWARE of that duality? All because of “purpose.”
Did you win the game?
Did you get to pick your prize?
Whether we win what we want or not, we must play another game! Our “little win” became history. What matters is “now.” Are we aware of that?
Do we have the belief that BINGO is “better” after this Life? Ah! the little mind and its little hopes, looking for little saviors.
Or how about the belief that winning is EVERYTHING, and we must DO anything in our power to win… Wouldn’t that stress us out every time we play?
That is exactly how a conditioned human behaves in Life, but some call that “fun.”
“Wait a minute! Are you implying that winning/achieving is not the purpose of Life?”
Nope. I am implying that “purpose” has no meaning, when PLAYING is all there is. We may say that the purpose of Life is to play, as the mind needs a reason to live; but let me assure you this: If you have a purpose, you are not truly enjoying the game. Have you noticed that?
Nevertheless, many may play the game of giving a meaning to Life.
Have we played the game of Philosophy? Religion? Doctrines? Beliefs?
It is pretty neat! Every game we play “successfully,” will allow us to “improve” and go to the next “level.” That is the ego trip… but for Life, all of those things are just human “mental” games inside the “big game” of Bingo.
Play the game. Enjoy it for what it is, a GAME. Liberate yourself by placing your made up purpose/meaning aside. Life is good as it is!
“What is the purpose of adding a purpose?”
To purposely live in the mind! 🙂
Can you live without goals and purpose?
Ask yourself if you could live life without goals, objectives, purpose and meaning.
If you are able, that will set you free from the mind.
Sounds crazy!
Consider this: Before you could perceive what is the mind, practically and not by a concept, a definition; you may need to increase the ego-mind to be AWARE of it.
“Have an objective. Give your life purpose, meaning!” Isn’t that the mainstream spiritual teaching?
Achievement gives you purpose and so failure to achieve. You could be a “winner or a loser.” Either way, you will need more things to achieve, to keep you “entertained.”
Once you are tired of setting goals to achieve, you will start freeing yourself from your mind, but that is not easy. A low point in your life may appear. Your trust in “best sellers” may be reconsidered.
“But goals are not bad! We need goals, objectives, something to look forward to in Life!”
Correct. But look at the beliefs in your statement: “We need goals” is the first belief. The second one is to label “living with goals,” as Life.
Goals are needed in the “Office world,” but outside that there is another Life, which I invite you to explore. This writing is only an invitation… 🙂
So you want to achieve the objective of losing 25 pounds by next year. That is the goal. You have a year to entertain yourself in achievements. You also want Heaven after this Life. You cannot fail that, for there is always plenty of room in Hell…
Observe this: You are aware that you are overweight. Are you aware of what increases that weight? That is it. No need to go into the “I promise that from now on…” What is so magical about 25 pounds? As stated before, the mind likes numbers, dates, definitions.
Heaven is your goal? What are you going to DO? “Good” actions? Is what society defines as “good” truly “good”?
Is an action performed with the intention to achieve something for you, truly “good”? Isn’t that action actually covering your greed?
“What greed?” You are “helping” only yourself and making someone believe that you are doing it out of your good heart. All about mind and not feelings.
How can you go to Heaven if you are greedy?
“Yes, but I helped someone. My action helped another.”
That is the theory in the “Office world.” DOING defines a person. In Life, BEING defines the action. That is why Karma deals with who you ARE behind the action. Now, you know why “bad things happen to good people.”
“Let me write a check with some money to help the poor” Is that a good action?
Are you giving because you can spare some change, because you want to go to heaven, or because you believe that money will help someone? Let us say that 80% of your money went to some crooks who set up a fictitious fund to “help the poor.”
Yes… you had a “good” intention as long as Heaven and giving your left overs weren’t lingering in your mind…
See how tricky “good” becomes?
The problem is the mind. The mind creates goals, objectives, purpose, meaning, good and bad… Duality. We “reason” our actions based on the learned conditioning…and we believe that to be “real,” “truth,” and use politically correct labels to defend “our” thinking…
Words used to take us away from a new consciousness
A little depth today…. 🙂
In life, the Universe, the Cosmos, etc (pick the label) everything is movement. Our cells move. The Earth moves. The Sun moves, thus “our” consciousness moves as well.
The paradoxical aspect of that movement is that to “move” implies to go away from what something “is” however, that movement is meant only to go back to the same position. In other words, “something” moves away from itself just to meet itself again.
Isn’t that paradoxical?
Does it make any sense? 🙂
Karma is like that. An action moves from the “doer” just to come back to him.
Any movement from “being” into becoming will necessarily go back to that “being” again.
This is the premise behind “eternal return.”
When we deeply realize this by just observing Nature, we could allow our insight to take us away from the mundane.
That is why there is no beginning of time. That is just an intellectual logical premise which does not work with the paradoxical nature of the Universe, life, the Cosmos, etc.
It is a circle. Life is a circle with no beginning or end.
Nevertheless our minds are caught up in conceptual thinking.
We want a “beginning,” therefore we ask:
“Who created the Universe?”
It always existed. It just changes, moves to be like it was “before.” 🙂
The word “creator” may need to be redefined if we would like for the “Big Guy” to keep his job.
🙂
The Moon has phases from our perspective but paradoxically, those phases do not exist.
The phases of the Moon are:
New, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent, new Moon again.
Do we see the cycle?
It moves away from itself to become itself again.
The above phrase, has more importance than what it looks like.
The moon does not have to do anything for this movement to occur. It just happens. If the Moon had human consciousness, then the Moon could make “effort” to become a full moon again… The Moon could believe that a “full moon” is better than a third quarter.
If we deeply understand that, we could see the futility of believing in a “place” called Paradise which will last forever, when everything is change and… when there is no “creator.”
Paradise is a state of consciousness not a place. It is a state of fullness which then will move away from itself to become itself again, later on.
Every human being is like a Moon. Every human has a state of fullness, which occurs at different “time,” that is why there is variety of consciousness in life.
Our experiences are different and that makes our consciousness. Every one of us has different experiences, which are automatically meant to change us, to change our consciousness.
Paradoxically the “choice” to change at a certain time, is in us. That is when our awareness awakens.
To enjoy a different consciousness is a matter of openness to life. It is a matter of having the honesty to search within.
That change of consciousness does not happen through rituals, beliefs or physical practices.
There is not “doing” that could change consciousness.
The beauty is that our consciousness will change whether we want it or not, because everything moves, everything changes; everything evolves… just to become itself again. Just like the Moon.
Nevertheless, a not welcomed change in the horizon of life, will bring suffering.
It is almost as if the Moon wants to stay in “full moon” all the time.
Thanks God… 🙂 the Moon does not have ego; that is why it does not suffer… but human beings have ego, therefore…there is suffering in that “natural” movement away from itself.
“Things exist for a purpose” is an empty phrase in Nature.
Perhaps in the human world of business, but not in Nature, the Universe, the Cosmos, life.
Ego thrives in purpose.
Ananda was sitting by a tree in a hot morning in the Summer.
Is it the purpose of that tree to give shade to Ananda?
If the tree had ego, the tree could say:” Ananda. Thank me for giving you shade in this hot summer.” 🙂
If the tree had a business mentality, the tree could say: “ Ananda, I charge a dollar a minute for my “cooling” services… but today everything is 20% off. What a bargain!” 🙂
The purpose of a tree is not to give shade. Shade just happens because the tree is there.
Day and night just happens because there is a Sun and there is the Earth rotating in its axis.
The “purpose” of the Earth rotating is not to give day and night to humans. It just happens to be like that.
The Universe is consciousness (paraphrasing a reader) and consciousness allows us to have a certain experience. That is why reality is according to our consciousness.
Some will see the Universe and consciousness as being separated, that is when the “I” is present. This is the actual “collective consciousness” of the present time.
Oneness. We are all interrelated. There is no purpose out of anything. It is the way it is.
The minute we could see this, that is the minute that we will stop asking “why?”
If our minds are trapped in finding a creator, a purpose, a better place such as Paradise; we will miss the beautiful experience of just being…. Our intellectual minds will not allow us to enjoy.
Everything will move, will change… but we will be stuck in our beliefs, our ideas, our ego… until we become aware of them. That is the time when the “waning crescent” appears in the sky to give birth to a “new Moon,” a new consciousness.
Mission and Purpose in life
Mission is our destiny. It is what some people could read in the palms of our hands. It is what the position of the stars may signal at the moment that “we” manifested in the physical world.
As we can see our being manifests something in life-like a piece in a big jigsaw puzzle. Our mission is what has been already “written” and goes beyond any human interpretation.
For example, Bill Gates is a multimillionaire. Do we think that his mission in life is to “make money”? 🙂
Obviously that is just a very childish appreciation of his mission in life. Any of us could “guess,” think or have a “point of view,” but none of us is capable of knowing how his mission in life relates with other beings and life for something greater to happen. Just like the domino effect.
We discover our mission in life as we live life.
On the other hand, “purpose in life” is another made up word by great thinkers, philosophers and such.
There is no purpose in life unless we make up something like: “To help people,” “to help God,” “to help ourselves,” “to learn,” etc. Notice that as long as Avyakt7 uses “nice words” to describe a “purpose” then most individuals will like that. They will accept it.
However, these writings are the expression of going beyond the façade of “nice beliefs,” and “pretty words” and seeking acceptance.
We make up a purpose in life and we believe that this purpose is the “reason” why we are here. See? Even we believe that giving “reasons” is the way that life operates… 🙂
When we see that we are part of the Totality, of the big jigsaw puzzle, to know the “self” becomes very important.
Why?
Because that is needed for bringing joy to our lives. In one word: Enjoyment.
Let us say that “piece 666” of the jigsaw puzzle “thinks” that it has a “purpose” in life. “Piece 666” will go out of its way to “achieve” that “purpose,” not realizing that its destiny is to fit in nicely into the jigsaw puzzle along piece 667 and 665 and others…. Just to be “ONE.”
Because “piece 666” does not realize about its mission in life, that piece will suffer when expectations are not met.
Obviously, if piece 666 spends sometime in looking at “itself,” that is its shape, form, size, thickness, etc… while enjoying those specific dimensions and seeing the way to fit into the “common good,” then life will do the rest; that is, to get the other pieces around, magically… because those pieces fit right at a particular time. This is what we call through the “will of God,” or through “Life unforeseen circumstances.”
A purpose is something that we think about when we do not realize that there is a mission underneath.
Therefore, happiness is not the “purpose of life.”
That is a thought… a “nice” thought.
Happiness is the enjoyment of the “now” while seeing our mission in life unfold. Just like a “detached observer.” 🙂
Please see that “I am not doing anything,” “I am not making it happen…” as most “Life-coaches” would like us to believe. I am just opening up and enjoying what it is “ now” to let new things to happen by itself. That is, we trust the intelligence in life.
Of course, some may not be happy with that. Some may want to change and shape up life according to what “I want.” We could name that disease with a pretty label: “ being the master of my own destiny.”
“You” are not separated form the Totality.
“You” as separation is an illusion and so is “I.”
Through our thoughts we have created those personalities. We have given life to that “ego.”
Piece 666 cannot live apart form the jigsaw puzzle. Without it, Piece 666 is nothing…. When that “ego” is gone, then Piece 666 is no longer piece 666 but … the whole jigsaw puzzle itself… then “it” is truly something… 🙂 🙂
Is the answer more important than the question?
“There are no “bad” questions; only “bad” answers. “ We hear that cliché all the time, which is meant to encourage the shy ones to ask a question…
Let us take a look at this heart-felt quote:
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
A question will set up the answer. GIGO : “Garbage in, garbage out.”
In the realm of spirituality, in the realm of life; there are no “why’s.” Things happen “because” that is the way it should happen. No need to discover the “cause,” when the consequence is the child of that cause. “As the father, so the son..” 🙂
In the realm of the intellectual mind a “why” is very important, when in life; it is meaningless.
A “why” does not deal with what it is “now.”
Someone may say: “But to know why something happens; will allow us to understand how that came into the picture…”
Intellectually perhaps, it adds information to our minds, but nothing else.
Life has many interconnected variables. There is not a single answer that could fit all of them… although that is what the mind wants. That is how a “black or white” view of life came into existence.
“She treated me badly because…..” fill in the blank with something. It does not matter what it is.
Another question frequently asked is “how.”
“But, how do I do that… What is the method to get to that?” Experience, play with it. Please read the quote above.
A method means a recipe. Spirituality is not something that we cook with many ingredients. This is not a formula to make Coca Cola. 🙂 There is variety, every human being is different although the same 🙂
Here are more questions to “think about.” 🙂
1) What is the beginning of time? That question assumes that time is something with a beginning. The answer is already set up by the question.
2) Does God exist? That question has not been lived, experienced. It is just a bunch of: “Yes, because ….or No, because…” then we add stuff to support our thinking…no experience. If there is experience, that question wouldn’t be asked.
3) What is the purpose of life? It is assumed that life has a “purpose.” In the experience of life, the answer will appear.
4) Does my religion hold the truth? It is assumed that the truth is something to keep or hold… It is assumed that words, a dogma are the “truth.”
Mathias was sharing with Ananda about the “questions of life…”
Mathias: Friend, now you are a little growing shrub. Many animals will try to make a prey out of you…
Ananda: Why?
Mathias: There is no “why” in life; my friend. Flying birds are out there, they will feed on the best food that they can obtain. Being a little shrub is related with birds.
Why a big fish eats a small fish? 🙂
Because they are small….because they are fish… because someone is hungry… because it is lunch time… because it is 1 pm…. Because … because… because…
As we learn to free up our minds from the intellectual clutter, we shall see the answer in our experience… and then we shall wait for someone else to experience that similar experience so they can understand us, and save us from saying so many words and giving so many explanations … which could be so easily misunderstood by those who have not experienced the experience.
So “the answer” is : Wait and see… It will happen… if it has to… 🙂
Sense of purpose
There are many self-help books, spiritual books and even traditional educational values which emphasizes the word “purpose.”
Our psychology, our self-worth in our society, our sense of belonging to something… all of that is defined with the word purpose.
If you write something, there is a purpose. If you do something, there is a purpose. If you own something there is a purpose; thus, we ask ourselves… what is the purpose of life?
Thereby, our answer is already arranged so we could answer: “the purpose of life is…”
That is the wrong question to ask.
Purpose is needed when we are not part of the whole. As long as there is an “I,” a motive, a “raison d’être,” there will be a purpose.
“My purpose in life is this and that.” We have automatically caged our own potential based on an idea.
This idea may remain for a long time despite life changes. The ideal becomes more important than living life.
Western mentality and many religions and philosophies believe that “we need to have a purpose in life.” That is “true” but it is not the “truth.”
What is the purpose of the sun? 🙂
We could give many reasons. To give life to this planet, to allow daylight to happen, to maintain a predetermined balance in the solar system or just so I could get a tan at the beach… many purposes, all valid according to time and circumstances. Nevertheless, all of those reasons are just coming from a limited perspective, a one-sided viewpoint. The Sun by itself does not have a purpose. It is simply there as part of a divine balance, movement that we call life.
Human beings on the other hand, will search for a purpose. For some it could be to paint. For others, to be a golf players, for others to be a teacher.. all about “doing” things.
A purpose in the “doing” realm is very restrictive. If “I” ever believe that “I” am what “I” do, then at that moment, “I” am not aware that “doing” has nothing to do with a purpose. The “purpose” has always been in “being.” However, once we find “being,” there is no longer a need for a purpose. 🙂
The paradoxes of life are truly amazing. Our belief in a particular word will limit our thinking and our amplitude, our openness to life.
Any intellectual understanding of life itself is incomplete. It will lack grace and beauty. It will lack life.
We could pretend to understand a fish separated from water. That is intellectual understanding.
But we know that fish and water go together. This is insight.
As we add more elements, we can see that fish, water, sky, day, night, clouds, wind….. all is a togetherness… then we could come closer to what is… as long as we feel it.
Life Purpose
Life appears as a very distant star in space
When becoming someone is the only goal
Hide the past, fake the present, don’t face!
Is about that future, your next role
Learn to hate, while calling it love
Learn to smile while dressing your tears
Make a pose, reality is to get rid of
Always look pretty, and hide your fears
Life is beautiful, the purpose is obscure
Some go for riches, others for power
The coffin does not know how to lure
but ends up irresistible as a flower
What is the purpose of life?
Who knows the answer, may I ask?
It is to cut your heart with a knife
Oblivious that your performed the task.
It is to experience the comedy
To happily act in the Drama.
The purpose of life is,
To live without trauma!
Exploring the Depth of Living 